About Me

Steven and I were married May 19, 2006 in the Snowflake Arizona Temple. Since then we have had our beautiful daughter Callie join our family, Steven has graduated from law school, and Becky has been working as a nurse. Since graduating from law school we have moved back to Arizona and we are loving our lives and the many experiences we are having!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Well what can I say? It has been a while. I don't even know if people still check our blog. Let me tell you what has been going on. This last Sunday I finished finals. I feel so good to be done. I hope that I did well, but I can't really say how well I did--I just don't know. My hardest test was Property. It was part multiple choice and part essay. The essay was about 100 mins long. However, the hardest part was the 13 future interests questions including the 4 Rule Against Prepetuities questions which can be tricky. Since then, I have basically been doing nothing. Actually, I have watched about 5 episodes of Chuck on my computer. I love that show and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good show with lots of action. On Sunday it snowed the first real snow. I think we got about 7-9 inches of snow. The bad thing is that they stink at plowing the roads. They basically don't and instead they simply salt the roads. What can I say? We are very excited to come home for a couple of reasons. First, its warm in Arizona--it has not been above freezing in 12 days. Second, its Christmas the best time of the year. Lastly, it will be good to see everybody. It has been some time and a visit is due. We'll see you then.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Nursing, wow it has definitely kept me on my feet. Lately I found out why they call my cardiac unit a step down cardiac unit, also considered a critical care floor. We get the patients who are recovering from heart surgery, had a heart attack, have coronary artery disease, and then some of the general med surg stuff. Halloween night was one really bloody night for me. I had the nicest older gentleman as a patient who had an arterial line in, or in other words a big IV put into one of the biggest blood vessels of the body. My patient was confused and often stated "Becky take me out of this basement, I want to go to my room" after reorienting him and telling him "You are already in your room, and we are on the 4th floor not a basement" he would be okay. Then he I would go in and see he would have his leg bent, a huge no no with an arterial line in the groin. I would run over and say "keep your leg straight!" He would say "why?" I would think "because I don't want you to bleed to death." and then tell him why. After about 4 times of going through this I had to get an order for a leg restraint. He was such a good sport. I just had to keep reorienting him. We get a lot of older patients who become confused or see weird things while in the hospital, like my friend calmly stated that he was seeing spiders on the wall behind me. You just have to keep telling them what's going on. We'll after a successful night with my friend, him not bleeding to death, and him pulling out only one of his own arm IV's, I felt like the night was a success. Then came the time right at shift change when he needed a procedure. It is amazing how problems just happen to occur right at shift change. On our way off the floor and going inside the elevator, part of the art line tubing became disconnected. I looked down and noticed blood was poring all over the floor. I yelled out to the staff "Get gloves!" but I knew by the time that they returned he could have lost tremendous amounts of blood. With blood all over the elevator floor and continuing to poor I did what I had to do: jumped in, kinked the tubing, stopped the bleeding, and the fixed the problem. With blood up to my wrist I saved the day. Well I thought I did. I can honestly say that was a new experience. When I took him down to the procedure a nurse stated "I hate when that happens," like it was an everyday occurrence. Boy do I have a lot to learn, first is to bring gloves when you take a patient off the unit.

The weekend before Halloween we went to our friend's, the West's, home for a Halloween party. They had one great party with bread/soup bowls, pie, treats, pumpkin carving, and take home goodies. My favorite part about it was.......

Seeing Princess Layla and Darth Vader.

One happy family. Stephanie works as a nurse at the same hospital as me, but in the ER department, and Ryan goes to law school too, but at MSU instead of Cooley, where Steven goes.

Here is our pumpkin, Morris. Okay I just came up with that name, but he looks like a Morris right? He's still sitting outside. The Squirrels are literally just eating him away. That's okay we had no emotional attachments to Morris and hope they are getting their winter fill.

Oh! and we made Oreo Cookie Carmel Apples. mmmmmmm. So easy. Just roll the apple in crushed oreos while the carmel on the apple is still hot. Soooooo tasty.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Last night Steven and I planned on going to the Detroit Temple as our Friday date night. I was to pick him up right after he was done with school and then we would drive straight to Detroit. On my way to pick up Steven I got a cell phone call, and of all people, it was the temple president. I thought "How did he know we were coming? I did not schedule an appointment, or did I?" It turned out that he didn't know, but stated that our bishop had referred us to him to be temple workers. I told him that we were headed over to Detroit at that very moment; how convenient is that! On the way over there we got held up in traffic. Luckily though we made it to Detroit in a decent how, but poor Steven was tired and hungry. On our way I told Steven that we could eat any where he wanted, but it turned out because of lack of time, our options ended up on being very limited to KFC and a small diner, and Steven let me know that KFC was not going to satisfy his 10am hunger. We were scrunched for time and I could feel the tension in the air as Steven said "why do we do this? I don't like being rushed." I thought to myself "Because there is no other time to go to the temple, and you just told me that your hungry. What do you want me to do?," but I kept my mouth shut. He was right we were scrunched for time. I felt like I was in a lose-lose situation. Well, I knew for sure I did not like the hungry/irritable version of Steven so I took him to the small dinner. We rushed through dinner and rushed to the temple, and in our ideal world we would have made it to the 8pm session, but we didn't. Amazingly though what really happened is that as soon as we entered the door the atmosphere changed. There was not that sense of rush or failure. I felt at peace and happy. I still felt good for coming. We were able to meet with the temple president and he offered us the opportunity to work as ordinance workers, and stated how we would be blessed in doing so. We then went and did sealings. When it was all said and done everything turned out perfect. No, we did not make it in time for the session, but we were able to do sealings, an experience that Steven and I always wanted to have, and on top of that meet with an amazing man of God. After going to the temple we left with a peace that we did not have before entering, and an excitement in the opportunity to work at the temple. Oh, and I learned next time to pack dinner. :)

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Well, this week and last week have been pretty good. Last week I had mid-terms in torts, criminal law, and contracts. Funny thing is that the test that I felt the worse about, torts, I did the best and the test that I though I did pretty well in I did pretty good but not as good as the one I felt bad about. Anyways, I am above the average in all the classes according to the mid-terms. Nevertheless, I do not want to get a false sense of security because in law school the only test that really matters is the final. I have heard stories of people that have aced the mid-term and still got a C. Also, more good news is that in my skills class (a class that is suppose to teach me law school reasoning and writing skills) practice essay for torts I only missed 1/2 point for a 97 percent. This essay is graded by a professor on campus. Once again, however, I do not want to get a false sense of security, but at least I know I'm not way out in the deep-in. Other than law school and Becky''s work, we haven't done much. I guess last Friday we went to see saltinbanco by Circ De Soli (I think that is how you spell it). It was amazing what they could do. I would highly recommend seeing any of their performances if you get the chance. Well better get back to work.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Well lets see . . .This week has been pretty uneventful. I have just been doing the normal thing. You know, reading and studying. It has been pretty good. Next week is mid-terms and I have a bit of studying. The good thing is that they are only worth about 10% of my grade so I don't have to worry too much. Becky is at work right now. She has started working nights so I don't see her often. The leafs are changing colors and things are going to really get colorful in the next couple of weeks. We'll have to take some pics and post them for all to see. Well things are going great and we'll be sure to keep everybody updated to our progress.

Christmas:As many of you know the Crandell's are moving to Casa Grande BEFORE Christmas. We were wondering everbody's plans for Christmas. If you guys have any idea let us know. We will be flying into Arizona I believe on the 21st or 22st of December and we will be leaving a week later.

Well Hello there,I forgot our password and blog address so I had to create a new in order to keep up the demand of everybody's inquiries. Last time I blogged I spoke about Becky's first overnight shift. Since then, Becky has started working on a cardiac floor with her trainer Hye. She's some sort of Asian lady and is apparently very funny. I have never met her but she is supposed to teach Becky and me how to make better Sushi. I have started law school. All that I can say is that it is very tough and time consuming. If there was anyway to describe what it is like it would have to be this: imagine reading everyday some much that you feel as if your eyes are going to pop out, imagine your teachers not teaching you anything and yet still expect you to know the concepts as well as they do, picture being constantly consumed in the study of one thing that once you are done studying you really are not because you are thinking about examples of that one thing while sleeping. I can't help but look at everything I am learning and apply it to everyday life. For example, every time I go to the grocery store I think I just formed a bilateral contract while checking out in line. My favorite example, however, is while I am teaching Sunday School at church I break-out into the Socratic dialogue with my 16 year-old students. I even make them stand-up to speak. All this time, my law school grade is based on one test many of which are just one question. It can be pretty stressful, but it is do-able. I enjoy it and I feel that I am actually learning something that I will be able to use professionally. If I am distant is for this reason and I appolgize ahead of time. It will be very busy for me at lease for the next couple of years. Anyway, thank you all for your birthday wishes. Don't hesitate to visit. Becky and I are always commenting on how wonderful it would be to have more family come and visit. There are many beautiful sights in Michigan and if you want good college football action this is the place. Well sometimes. Well Becky and I Love you guys and we hope everything is moving along well. Let us know if there is anything we can do for you. Over and out.